Wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of every day life, so many of us are sleep deprived? Since sleep is so critical to our health and well being, we’ve made it the focus of this month’s newsletter.

Even with a good diet and exercise routine, if you are not getting proper sleep you can still suffer from nagging aliments such as neck pain, headaches, skin changes, itching, poor recovery from exercise, forgetfulness, a hard time staying focused and adrenal fatigue. These can also lead to many more serious medical conditions.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP

Our bodies are meant to function with the rising and setting of the sun. Cortisol, a natural stress hormone within your body, helps to assist with this. As cortisol rises in the morning it causes you to wake up. As the sun goes down, your cortisol level decreases which makes you sleepy. As this happens, your growth and repair hormones increase. From 10:00pm to 2:00 am, these hormones are responsible for the physical repair of your body. Psychological/mental repair follows from 2:00am to 6:00am. So, if you go to bed at 2:00am, you’ve lost all of your physical repair time. You’re body doesn’t play catch up!

What so many people don’t realize is that you can have a disruption at any point of your sleep/wake cycle. A brightly lit house, watching TV, using the computer late into the evening, high levels of caffeine, a late vigorous workout, reading an intense novel or working late hours will keep your levels of cortisol high in your blood stream. As a result, melatonin and other growth/immune hormones can’t be released and proper bodily repair doesn’t take place. For example, your liver empties at approximately 2:00-3:00 am. If your stress hormones are high and your immune hormones haven’t been released or if you’re up during these hours then the liver will not empty and replenish itself for the next day. These toxins that weren’t able to be dumped and excreted through the body remain in your body and over time can lead to other complications.

QUICK TIPS FOR BETTER SLEEP

• Try to get into bed by 10:30pm.  If you are one who goes to bed late this may be difficult for you. If so, each night try to get into bed 5 minutes earlier.
• Minimize your exposure to bright lights and make sure your room is completely dark (the light fools your body into thinking that it’s daytime, increasing your cortisol level) This includes the alarm clock, TV, and street lights.
• Avoid stimulates such as sugar and caffeine.
• Getting into a good exercise routine can also help with sleep.  Be careful though, high intensity workouts over 30 minutes long can increase cortisol levels. So, if you are exercising late in the evenings and find yourself wired with difficulty sleeping, try to change the time of day you work out.
• Check your levels of cortisol through simple saliva testing which can be performed here at Replenishing Soul.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Sleep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.